Thanks to Paula Noonan and Capitol Commons for including me in their Secretary of State candidate list! Unaffiliated candidates Greg Lopez and Shimon Blau made the news this past week when they got on the ballot, but other serious candidates running against the establishment are too often ignored.

Why does the U.S. elect partisan secretaries of state? Other nations don’t. The SoS swears an oath to the U.S. Constitution, not to a party. Let Colorado lead the way in electing the first SoS who is from a “nonpartisan” party. www.forwardparty.com

Tomorrow, Aug 4, 6:30pm-8:30pm in Littleton - Join Celeste and U.S. Senate candidate Bob Chew for a community conversation. Take a photo with Celeste’s 150-year-old, 38-star U.S. flag! Ken Caryl Ranch House, 7676 S Continental Divide Rd www.celeste4sos.com/event-detail...

Lee Drutman advocates for fusion voting to pave the way for proportional representation. leedrutman.substack.com/p/how-fusion... If CO had fusion voting, then I would be listed under the Forward, Approval Voting, Unity and perhaps other party lines. www.coloradosos.gov/pubs/electio...

Four different 38-star flag patterns! The Capitol rotunda flag appears to be “modern.” The small flag displayed in the History Colorado Center is not symmetric left to right as it hangs! A third flag with an interesting circle pattern, and the flag I posted in July. Modern flags are standardized!

Today: July 31 – A new CO law (HB25-1315): “if the [legislative] vacancy occurs” between July 31 of an even year and before July 31 of an odd year, then the county clerks may NOT let voters with the wrong party label vote in that election! Unconstitutional!

The rise of small-dollar “donation mobs” are not the moderating influence hoped for in the wake of Citizens United. The authors of Small Donors in US Politics say, donation mobs are “irrational and inefficient” leading to polarized and performative politics. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

I “rolled” three 10-sided dice on July 13th to help get the 20-digit random number that determined which ballots would be chosen for a risk-limiting audit in each county. The Colorado Sun interviewed me for a July 24th article about election safeguards. coloradosun.com/2026/07/24/b...

Happy 150th birthday, Colorado! We Coloradans get to celebrate the sesquisemiquincentennial – Colorado 150, America 250. www.historycolorado.org/colorado-150 I plan to be at Saturday's Denver festivities with my 38-star, 150-year-old U.S. flag!

Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega (1985-90 and since 2007) announced that Nicaragua will no longer hold elections. Most authoritarian governments see advantages to holding some sort of election, sham though it may be, but evidently not 80-year-old Ortega. theconversation.com/daniel-orteg...

Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua plans to scrap elections – what that says about today’s autocrats

Many autocrats rig elections to stay in power. Nicaragua’s longtime president has gone one step further.

theconversation.com

Longmont Cruise Night – I don’t know much about car models, but the crowds and I loved seeing the variety of vehicles on Main Street on Saturday night! We even took a ride up and down the street with my campaign signs.

In his July 16 speech, Trump tried to undermine confidence in elections; his statements don’t stand up to scrutiny. On Tuesday New Jersey provided undisputed evidence of noncitizens registering and even voting; NJ has corrected the software glitch causing the problem. www.npr.org/2026/07/22/n...

Join us Friday, 10am to noon, in Boulder for a last-minute, informal, Pop-Up Meet & Greet. Partake in light refreshments and snacks. Two tents will provide limited shade. Please be prepared for the heat of the day. Address on the Events listing at www.celeste4sos.com

Celeste’s last 2026 World Cup post on Bluesky?? "La Albiceleste" translates to "The White and Sky Blue" and is the nickname for the Argentina national soccer team – from the Spanish words albi (white) and celeste (sky blue), the colors of the national flag and the team's striped jerseys.

The 3 non-Secretary of State statewide contested races (US Senator, Governor, Atty Gen) each spent more than $1 million in the primary and all featured at least 1 candidate who currently holds a statewide elected office. The Democratic primary winners for those 3 seats already hold statewide office.

Rick Bennett, independent candidate for Maine governor, is endorsed by the Forward Party. He was Senate president under independent Gov. Angus King. In King’s cabinet, the question of “What’s good for the party?” never came up. The question was always: What’s good for Maine? ivn.us/rick-bennett...

Congrats to Spain and its Basque keeper on winning the World Cup! I have a brother born in Bilbao (Basque region) and a daughter who worked in Barcelona (Catalonia). Both daughters spent summers in Salamanca and together walked the Camino to Santiago de Compostela (Galicia). Many languages in Spain!

I took this photo in Salamanca, Spain, during the 2010 World Cup. My daughter stayed with a family for the summer and got the soccer-ambivalent family excited about the national team. If Spain wins, it will be the first time a country’s men’s and women’s teams are simultaneous World Cup champions.

About 12:30am on Wed., the Longmont City Council voted 6-1, directing staff to draft a 2-part ballot measure to use ranked voting and hold elections for the 3 ward council seats offset by two years from a 3-winner at-large council contest. We were tired, but happy at the end!

The IRS reimbursement rate for mileage has increased from 72.5 cents/mile to 76 cents/mile, retroactive to July 1, 2026, due to “recent increases in the price of fuel.” Candidates, campaign committees and businesses – take note! See pages 1 and 13 (labeled 49) of www.irs.gov/pub/irs-irbs...

Recount Math. Unofficial results 7/10/26, Republican gubernatorial contest: Victor Marx got 208,455 votes (39.86%), Barb Kirkmeyer got 205,990 (39.39%), and Scott Bottoms got the rest. The less-than-or-equal-to 0.5% margin requirement to conduct an automatic recount was not met.

Jena Griswold is both the current Secretary of State and a candidate for Attorney General. The Nat'l Association of Secretaries of State meets July 14-17; the Nat'l Assoc of Attorneys General meets July 13-15. Too bad she (and I) can’t use Hermione Granger’s Time-Turner to be in 2 places at once.

“The thread running from 1776 to now: Not agreement, not uniformity, but the willingness to do the hard work of self-governance together, in good faith, with honesty, and with the understanding that the experiment only works if enough people choose to show up for it.” Sign at pledge.braverangels.org

On May 10th I reported that the Election Assistance Commission was short one Republican member. Today the remaining Republican resigned, and Trump fired the two Democrats. The recent Trump v Slaughter decision doesn’t require the President to have cause to fire them.

Yesterday I was delighted to see my friend’s 38-star flag! I call this the Colorado U.S. flag since Colorado is the 38th state. (“Colorado U.S.” reminds me of our Colorado National Monument.) Please share info on appropriate handling and care of a 150-year-old flag!

Michael Bennet lost the Democratic gubernatorial primary and hope of naming his successor in the U.S. Senate. Meanwhile, Mitch McConnell is ill – gravely, by some reports. A 2024 Kentucky law requires a special election to fill a U.S. Senate vacancy. McConnell’s term ends in January.

Improving the ballot access process for candidates is the focus of Courageous Colorado’s recent report, but until we adopt better voting methods to help prevent vote splitting, having more candidates won’t necessarily get us results that reflect the true will of the electorate.

Results are not official yet, but significantly fewer Dem primary ballots had a vote marked in the Sec of State contest compared to the other statewide contested races. US Senate (JH v JG) - 887,630 votes Gov (PW v MB) - 880,985 Sec of State - 816,536 AG (JG v DS v MD v HD) - 865,114

The July 4th Park Hill parade was a blast! I loved seeing the community celebrating America’s 250th birthday. Captain America, Spiderman and other superheroes were there. Batman took one of my signs and let me sit in his Batmobile.

Joseph Overton died 23 years ago this week. The 1848 Declaration of Sentiments, modeled after the Declaration of Independence and currently on loan in Denver, was definitely outside the Overton window! (The illustration was created by Hydrargyrum and is on the Wikipedia webpage for Overton window.)